Improvement



PATENT OFFICE.

SIMON IIEITEE, or PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

IMPROVEMENT IN TENTS.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No.l35235, dated May 13,1862.

. city and county of Philadelphia, in the State of Pennsylvania, haveinvented certain new and useful Improvements in Tents for Army and otherPurposes; and I do hereby declare ,Y

that the followingis a full, clear, andexact description of theconstruction and operation of the same, reference being hadl to theannexed drawings, making a part of this specification, in which-A Figurel is a front View, and Fig. 2 a View of the under side of the ribs andbraces of the roof when the apparatus is expanded.

To enable others skilled in the art to make and use my invention, I willproceed to de# scribe its construction and operation.

I prepare a staff, A, about `ten feet long, one end of which, B, ispointed and shod with iron. `The other end, C, is providedwith a Iix'edferrule, around and to which are hinged a `number of radial arms orribs, a, sufficient to afford the requisite strength and support to thecanvas covering.

D is a` sleeve which slides up and down the staff, and which has hingedto it the lower ends of the bracesb, equal in number to the radialarmsor ribs a. The other ends of these braces are hinged tothe severalradial arms or ribs near their outer ends, as seen at (Z. 1 A canvascovering, E, is `stretched over and secured to the `ribs a in the samemanner that the cloth is attached to the ribs of an umbrella,whichcanvas extends down all around the tent and furnishes' its sides F. Thelength `of the canvas sides is greaterby several inches than thedistance from the surface of the ground to the ends of the ribs when thetent is set, so that the said sides, when they are pinned, as at e, mayincline inwardlyT from the ground to the top, thus furnishing all theexterior bracing the structure requires.

It will be seen from this description that the tent is set by simplydriving the pointed end of the staff into the ground and raising thesliding sleeve until it is caught and retained by the spring f, inthesame manner that an umbrella is spread. This operation extends the ribsa and stretches the canvas top and suspends the sides, when they aredrawn outwardly and pinned, as represented. rPhe tentis struck in anequally expeditious manner. The pins are removed, the ribs lowered byreleasing the sleeve, and the staff extricated from the ground, when thewhole apparatus thus folded-the canvas top in be tween y the ribs andthe canvas sides down along the stad-is packed for transportation.

The canvas top being permanently attached.

to the ribs and the canvas sides to thecanvas top, there are no separateparts to be looked after and attached and no adjustment of the canvas tothe frame is required.

Then the tentis set, the vertical space within is seven feet, and thedistance from the braces b at their connection with the' sleeve to thetop is two feet. This space and the braces may be utilizedy for stowingaway and suspending the equipages of the soldiers. Having thus describedmy invention and pointed out the Inanner in which it operates, what Iclaim'as new therein, and desire to secure by Letters Patent of theUnited States,

A tent having expanding and contracting ribs, like an umbrella-frame, towhich are

